The more I read about Sudan...

The more embarrassed I feel for not knowing about this situation sooner.

Good news first:

The United States Agency for International Development issued a press release o­n 4/21/2004 in which they announced that they would be sending an additional 30,000 metric tons of emergency food assistance to the World Food Program (WFP) for conflict-affected populations in Darfur in western Sudan. The additional aid is valued at approximately $27.1 million and it is estimated to arrive in Darfur in late May in advance of the rainy season which will make distributing the aid more difficult.

You kinda wish the food could arrive there soon, but I'm glad to see my tax dollars are being put to use for a good cause, rather then some other causes I can think about.

The UN is about to begin investigating human rights abuses in the country, which is good, because...

Arab militia and Sudanese government troops were responsible for the massacre of 136 African men in the Darfur region last month, Human Rights Watch charged on Thursday.

One wishes the problem stopped at 136 men, but there are thousands more dead or victimized by the Sudanese government:

Since February 2003, the Sudanese government and its allied Arab militias have waged a brutal war against a rebel insurgency and its perceived civilian base in Darfur. Government military operations have mainly targeted civilians who share the same ethnicity as members of the rebel groups. Government forces and allied militias have killed thousands and have forced more than 750,000 people to flee their homes within Sudan and another 120,000 to seek refuge across the border in Chad.

In interviews with Sudanese refugees in Chad, Human Rights Watch researchers documented widespread and systematic abuses committed in Darfur by government forces acting in complicity with the Arab militias known as “janjaweed.” Refugees consistently described indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian villages, the looting and burning of their homes by government forces and militia members, and incidents of murder, rape and abductions of women, children and the elderly.

And we thought Saddam was an asshole.